


Between

by Roca



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4677281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roca/pseuds/Roca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between two worlds (literally), Jenny drifts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilovehowyouletmefall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovehowyouletmefall/gifts).



Between

                In a way, Rupert was right. It _was_ the violence of the thing that mattered – the cacophonic terror crashing in her ears and the white roar of pain that blinded her as hands twisted around her neck.

                But Jenny Calendar was not a ghost. Or, if she was (and she really wasn’t quite sure at this point), she was definitely not possessing teachers and kids and having them run amok in the hallways shooting each other with phantom guns.

                Even if she’d wanted to, she didn’t have that kind of power. She was a spirit tied to this world not by the pure desperation of that addled lovesick kid, but sheer _frustration_. She had been so damn close to fixing everything – the pieces of the puzzle had been aligned, but everything had been torn apart before she’d been able to actually put them together. It was absolutely maddening.

                And so she remained. She stood with one foot wedged in the gates of heaven (or hell or whatever awaited her) and the rest of her leaning back into the world. It was clear that she wasn’t supposed to stay behind. Colors were muted and blurred, time dragged and twitched in random bursts, and she felt a hollow ache where bones had turned to air and shadow. But something – some drive, some sense of wrongness about leaving – made her linger. A phantom, a shade, a bruise in the flesh of existence.

                She drifted for days, then weeks. She saw the roses on the stairs and the fire in the factory, but was powerless to help. Her emotions were warped, coiling in her like a mass of snakes and sinking their fangs into her from the inside. Fury and fear and hate blended into a dark mauve that bled beneath her skin.

                Sometimes she heaved herself up into the sky and watched the town from above, staring at the lights below until she lost track of which were stars and which were streetlamps. She’d freeze there, terrified of choosing the wrong direction and falling forever into the sky, until the sun rose in a smear of tangerine and she finally recalled how to find her way to earth.

                Keeping track of the living was difficult. Sometimes she would stand at their shoulders and forget their faces even as she stared at them. Other times she’d be beside them and they’d simply vanish, days having passed in what seemed like half a moment.

She’d repeat their names, words strung into a prayer. As each day passed, more of them slipped away. Their voices turned to discordant sounds, bizarre and disconnected. Were they real? Had they ever been?

Months had clawed their way by. She’d drunk in the blood and death with vague disinterest. Mad, mad eyes, a flash of finger-talons and a gout of red. A man tied to a chair, seduced and broken. Swords clashing, harsh and raw and echoing violently.

                And then, suddenly, words. She hadn’t been able to understand them in a long, long time. Possibly forever, but she couldn’t be sure. But here they were again, falling from the girl’s mouth, trembling and unsure and bursting into coherency. She’d heard them before. No, she’d _seen_ them before. Screen and paper and magic and love and fear and Willow. She remembered now. Purpose long-forgotten ripped back into her and she was at the hospital, by the girl’s side, pushing and pushing so that she would not falter. But the magic was too much, she saw – Willow was slowing and Jenny could see her more clearly than any of the others as she pressed herself close to dying,

                So Jenny pushed harder. And she screamed and tore and flickered. She threw herself into Willow and something snapped and she could _see_. The colors were as they were supposed to be – too bright, after the dimness of her shade world, but she drank them in even as they burned her eyes – and the children were staring at her in concern, but she was too far gone to care. It had seized her – some wonderful mesh of Willow’s power and the knowledge that had been poured into her over generations and _herself_. J-E-N-N-Y and J-A-N-N-A and C-A-L-E-N-D-A-R and K-A-L-D-E-R-A-S-H and everything she had ever been and had ever wanted to be.

                The words came to her lips easily, and it didn’t matter that Willow’s amateur tongue tripped over the pronunciations. The power rushed around her and through her, circling within and soothing the chaos of months adrift and alone. Everything came together and clicked into place. She wasn’t a shade any longer – she was light itself. A thousand voices carried her away, chanting in tongues new and old to bring her home.

                There was a flash – a spasm of light as a wayward soul winged its way back. Willow flopped back onto her bed, blinking muzzily as her body became hers again.

                And Jenny Calendar, free at last from vengeance, judgement, and regret, flew into the great pale beyond.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is dedicated to the person who helped me see Jenny Calendar for who she was and explore her as a character more than I ever have. Thanks much!


End file.
